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Curriculum atop Huntington planning list

Strategic process nearing action team phase

CHILLICOTHE - The Huntington school district is getting close to setting its priorities for the future after a strategic planning core group has weighed in with its ideas.

Additional attention to curriculum alignment, a greater focus on meeting the needs of advanced students and bolstering early elementary intervention strategies are among the top priorities that have been expressed by the group.

The strategic planning process was launched shortly after the start of the school year through the creation of a core group charged with creating district and vision statements, drafting a set of core values and establishing strategic priorities that will guide the planning of action teams. The intent is to have plans in place that can be acted upon at the start of the next school year.

The core team has created a list of 34 items that could be addressed through the planning process, with the list prioritized based on the number of core team members who suggested specific items. Several of the items at the top of the list are curriculum-based.

"Obviously, there was a lot of discussion about curriculum because really that's our education," said Superintendent Pete Ruby, who is in his first year at the head of the district after two years as superintendent in the Adena Local Schools. "That need, especially with the requirements of today with the new report card and K-3 literacy (requirements) and the different requirements set by the state, we feel like it's extremely important to get everyone on board with what we're doing from the ground up.

"You're not going to have gifted kids and you're not going to have the more kids being challenged if we don't have our base at K-3, so everything has to be aligned from the bottom up. We believe we can push our kids further along if we get everything aligned from the bottom up."

Part of the discussion involves whether a curriculum director position will need to be hired to oversee how that alignment can best be accomplished. Any resolution of that question, Ruby noted, may have to wait until after the next state biennial budget is released over the summer so the district has a better idea of whether resources would be available to make such a hire or whether finding some way to accomplish the duties within the existing structure would be the better way to go.

Another issue that ranked high on the core team's list involved dealing with apathy. Ruby said the term in this case is not meant to convey anything negative about the district, but rather to indicate that the core team members want the district to avoid getting comfortable in where it stands presently.

"Apathy (in this context) revolved more about settling where we are now," Ruby said. "Sometimes as educators, or in our personal lives, we get caught up and we just settle, we get comfortable where we are and we don't pay attention with what's really going on and with what changes we need to make. I think a big part of the discussion was how do we create a culture of not settling for being middle of the pack in certain things.

"Our thought process and the thought process I think of the whole group is we don't want to be in the middle, we want to be at the top in everything that we do."

Communication was another issue identified, both within the district itself and between the district and the public it serves. Ruby said Huntington has already been in talks with a company to update and manage the district's website and social media activity and create an app for students and parents to keep them better informed on district happenings.

Other items further down on the priority list included such things as technology, facility upgrades, the arts and middle school electives.

The core team has one meeting remaining the evening of Feb. 13, at which time goal areas will be finalized and objectives created to help action teams develop plans for implementation. The district will be pursuing community members and business leaders to serve on those action teams.

"Our goal is to make sure that we try and have our action teams formed so that our plan can be finalized pretty much over the summer so that when we come back in the fall, we're hitting the ground running with our new plan," Ruby said.

MAKING A STATEMENT

The core planning team has created new vision and mission statements for the district with the blessing of consultants from the Ohio School Boards Association. The vision statement is centered around the acronym IDEAL, which stands for Inspire, Develop, Educate, Achieve, Live the legacy.

The mission statement, meanwhile, reads "We are passionately committed to cultivating the brilliance in every student, creating a brighter future."